We must decide the areas in which ash trees are to be preserved

Strategy to slow ash dieback disease.

SIR – The United Kingdom boasts several internationally significant populations of ash that require the highest levels of protection. These will be lost if we do not urgently put in place a strategy that targets these areas, at least to slow progress of the ash dieback disease.

Top of the list must be the Lake District, which includes significant numbers of ash in ancient semi-natural woodlands and many hundreds of ancient pollards. Pollarding (lopping branches off trees at a height of 10 or 12ft above ground on a regular cycle) is integral to the traditional silvo-pastoral system practised for centuries throughout the region.

In valleys such as Borrowdale, there are specimens hundreds of years old which provide a habitat for rare lichens, birds, bats and invertebrates. They are as much part of the landscape as the lakes, Herdwick sheep and vernacular architecture.

Our experience with Dutch elm disease, foot and mouth, and red squirrel conservation, tells us that core populations need to be identified and targeted at the earliest possible stage in an outbreak.

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SIR – Since the Second World War, native and ornamental trees in this country have been threatened by a series of diseases introduced from abroad.

During the Fifties, the Rosaceae family, including sorbus, crataegus and pyracantha, was affected by fireblight introduced from North America.

Dutch elm disease in the Sixties virtually exterminated the English elm. In the past decade, sudden oak death (again probably introduced from North America) has caused the felling of swathes of larch plantations and may threaten our native oak.

The horse chestnut leaf miner arrived in about 2002 and now there is the real threat of the native ash following the elm into oblivion. The time has surely come for the Government to take a lead by introducing a ban on imported plants and nursery stock.

Chris Rome Thruxton, Hampshire

SIR – I fear the Forestry Commission no longer has any value other than as a land owner and ineffectual regulator. Its plant pathology unit was effectively reduced to zero not long after we lost all our elm trees.

I have asked for advice about anthracnose in planes and sycamores, and black canker in horse chestnuts, to no avail.

Christopher Curry Godmanchester, Huntingdonshire

SIR – Each spring, to forecast our forthcoming summer weather, we recite: “Ash before the oak we will get a soak. Oak before the ash we’ll only get a splash.”

What will we do when there are no more ash trees in the countryside?

Valerie Mourilyan Wisborough Green, West Sussex

Seeing through the EU

SIR – Keith Moore (Letters, November 2) writes that, since the referendum in 1975, “the fundamentals [of the EU] have been altered to an extent that could not have been imagined at that time.”

On a Concorde flight to Washington in the late Eighties, I sat next to Edward Heath, the former prime minister. In an energetic conversation about the referendum, he was adamant that: “Nobody could have been under any illusion that they weren’t voting for political and economic union.”

I recall his words because they shocked me so much. When I argued that I and millions of others believed we were voting for membership of a “Common Market” and nothing more, he called us “deluded”. How accurate he was. He deluded us.

The fundamental changes were even planned in outline by the EU’s architects. Their successors carried them through by means similar to the deceit of 1975.

Michael Bacon Farnham, Surrey

Truth unto power

SIR – Peter Housden has done and continues to do an excellent job as the Permanent Secretary for the Scottish Government (“When it comes to Sir Peter Housden, we have a problem”, Comment, November 2).

Sir Peter retains the trust and confidence of colleagues across Whitehall, earning their respect for the diligent and thoughtful way he has approached the constitutional issues we are now dealing with. He is one of our most senior and influential voices – sitting on the Civil Service Board and playing a strong role in managing our senior talent.

Sir Peter, as with all civil servants, knows when to speak truth unto power and will do so as and when necessary. The suggestion in your piece that he fails to say “No” when “his political master misuses taxpayers’ money” is simply not borne out by any reality.

The expenditure you refer to met the tests set out in Section 3 of the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Act 2000. This point has been set out clearly by Sir Peter, and he has handled the whole situation with great integrity.

SIR – As a taxpayer, how pleased I am that the stuffed anaconda in the Foreign and Commonwealth Offices library has been restored (report, November 2).

What a pity, then, that the snake now has no books to guard, since the FO library was disposed of in 2008. Most of the books were sent to other institutions, but some were scandalously sold off.

Roger Croston Chester

We’ve got it taped

SIR – I still have cassette tapes in my

K-registered car (Letters, November 2), but was unable to find anyone to repair a favourite one. Luckily, I recently found a CD of it, and have transferred it to tape for my continued enjoyment.

Malcolm Watson Welford, Berkshire

SIR – I recently exchanged my gas-guzzler for a venerable VW Golf, and the thing that clinched the deal was that the Golf had a dual CD/cassette player. My 20-year stock of cassettes can live again.

Terence Key Bracknell, Berkshire

Britain in Palestine

SIR – Nabeel Shaath blames Britain for the Palestinians’ continued failure to establish their own state (Comment, November 1).

The Palestinian Authority glorifies terrorism on state television. Half of Palestine’s desired future state, the Gaza Strip, is under the control of terrorists. Hamas continues to target Israeli civilians with rockets and mortars. Palestinians refuse to sit at the negotiating table with Israelis. Palestinian leaders pursue unilateral measures for recognition when they undertook not to do so under the Oslo accords. None of this is the fault of Britain.

Palestinian rejectionism, as practised whenever they have been offered statehood (by the British, the international community, or the Israelis), is what is responsible for the plight of the Palestinians.

SIR – As Israel’s Ambassador to Britain, Daniel Taub is only doing his job when he claims that the United Nations partition resolution of 1947 was “accepted by the Zionists” (Comment, November 2).

However, if that were truly the case, then today Israel would be a smaller state and Jerusalem would be a corpus separatum overseen by the international community.

Zionists have used the UN partition plan as a stepping stone to the realisation of “Greater Israel”, taking as much land with as few Palestinians on it as possible. It’s hard to believe that the ambassador could write so much without mentioning his country’s military occupation even once.

Ibrahim Hewitt Senior Editor, Middle East Monitor London NW10

The right side

SIR – As a poppy seller, I am often asked which side a woman should wear hers. I always say the right side. However, more women seem to be wearing them on the left. Can anyone tell me the correct side?

Anthony Messenger Windsor, Berkshire

Ahead of the curve

SIR – On Downton Abbey, Matthew Crawley walked round the estate and mused: “It’s been a steep learning curve for me…” With other details of dress, speech and mores correct, this is a bit of a lapse.

Andrea Bates Enstone, Oxfordshire

Pathway to relieving pain as life ebbs away

SIR – Prue Leith’s story about her brother’s painful death (Features, October 26) is sadly not unique. Healthcare workers have, since Harold Shipman, been terrified to prescribe morphine for end-of-life care because they are afraid of recriminations.

This fear is all the more reason to support the Liverpool Care Pathway.

The timing of when to introduce the Pathway is critical; it is not guesswork, as has been suggested. It is about sound clinical judgment that comes with experience. Healthcare workers should have the common sense and sensitivity to obtain consent from relatives in advance, and to ensure that relatives understand that the pathway is about relieving pain and suffering so that there can be dignity as life ebbs away. Relatives should be encouraged to understand the needs of the dying and not their own needs.

You give examples of the Pathway being withdrawn and a patient living a further two weeks. However, no mention is made of the suffering that the person almost certainly experienced before finally dying. Who benefited from those two weeks? I am sure it was not the patient.